Today has been mainly spent in aeroplanes or airports, the picture above was taken about 20 hours ago, on the first plane in London, now we look more like zombies, but the airport hotel in Liberia seems nicer than the one in London. Plus we had lunch at what I’d like to think was an authentic American diner at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas.
The real adventure starts tomorrow morning when we head up to La Fortuna.
This is my girlfriend Jen, she’s the subject of my new year blog because we have got lots of exciting plans together for 2012 (and she has just made me a gorgeous dinner!).
The most exciting of our plans are trips to Costa Rica and the Outer Hebrides, which should both provide some great photo opportunities. Our 2012 got off to a slightly less adventurous start with an afternoon stroll around a local country park to break in new boots for our trips further afield and of course to take a few pictures!
I don’t normally take pictures of kids, but as we were with some friends for an early Xmas meal and this little chap was in a cheeky mood I thought I’d get the camera out and see if he would pose for me. He went a bit shy at first, but this image really captures his personality, Mum and Dad seem to be pleased with it too!
Something I have been meaning to do for a while is to get a rogues gallery in my office of people that I don’t really see enough, so after collecting some prints (at the same time as a processed roll of Velvia!) from the lab, some frames from Ikea and a few hours cutting/sticking I have the following 4 pictures on my office wall of some people who are important to me.
Simon:
Ali & Webb:
Partho:
And of course, Jen:
I’m back up in Scotland, which means, more landscape photography.
This morning we decided to head to Forfar to get some bridies for lunch and seeing as it was such a nice morning we decided to continue over to Arbroath to get some smokies for dinner.
Arbroath Harbour:
Dad at Arbroath Harbour:
The only downside to the trip was that it was perfect sports car weather, driving on perfect sports car roads, but both the sports cars are back down in the shire. Now it’s time to eat the smokies…
After a couple of days with rubbish light, we were able to get out with the cameras again, we decided to keep it fairly local and walked to Kinnoull Hill on the outskirts of Perth. I’d remembered about a pond, that was used for the sport of curling in the olden days, from a previous trip, so we took a detour to find it again. The pond was frozen and the ice was pretty thick, certainly enough to take my weight. (Don’t play around on frozen lakes etc, it isn’t big or clever)
The real reason for choosing Kinnoull Hill, was Kinnoull Tower, a derelict tower perched on the edge of a cliff, probably a look out post to spot people coming up the Tay from the North Sea/Dundee. Its well positioned to catch the evening sun and with the Tay weaving away in the background. This afternoon the Tay was fairly full, with hardly a ripple and I really like the way this image has come out.
Also in Kinnoull Woods there are a series of wooden sculptures by Pete Bowsher (aka Chainsaw Pete), this bird of prey (looks like an eagle, but buzzard sized) was up near Kinnoull Tower.
Even though I didn’t post it on the 1st January, the image below was taken on my way home from a new years party.
Being of Scottish/French descent a St George’s Cross isn’t something I’d normally take a picture of, but I thought the light on it was great. I was taking the scenic route home from my parent’s place and stopped at Fairfax’s viewpoint, just outside Naseby, hoping to capture the vista that Fairfax would have seen prior to the Battle of Naseby, minus all the armies etc obviously, but a farmer had dropped a huge pile of manure in the foreground of the shot, so a flag is what I took.
As I’ve already hinted at, 2010 is going to be a busy year, the motorsport season is going to start for me on the 14th February, with some rallycross at Mallory Park (being single on valentines day does have some benefits), with the Ma5da Racing season kicking off towards the end of March. As per 2008 & 2009 I will be covering all rounds of the Ma5da Racing Championship, including their add on series for the Mk3 MX-5s. When I have got more reliable dates for the events I am covering I will put a post on the blog, this should be in a few weeks after the Autosport International show.
My aims for 2010 photography wise are to get published in Autosport magazine again, get my website 100% finished and most importantly to take more photos for myself. In my personal life I’m aiming to snowboard more than I did in 2009, which shouldn’t be too tricky and to get my flat sorted out, before the 2 year anniversary of moving in. I will also make sure that I update this blog (and my development blog) more often.
I’ll leave you with a bonus picture from my new years eve celebrations, regular readers may recognise Simon, my little brother, who threw a nations themed fancy dress party to bring in 2010, any guesses as to which nation he is?
Those of you following my Twitter may realise that I am up at my family’s place in Perth (Scotland, not Australia), we’re just chilling out waiting for Santa to arrive, so I grabbed my Dad’s new lens (Canon EF 85 f1.8) and shot this image of Simon, my little brother, doing what he does best.
This was shot wide open and the quality of the lens really shines through, hopefully I’ll be able to borrow it more over the next few days!
While my blog was updating itself at the start of 2009, I was at a party with some of my closest friends from school. I took advantage of the lowered inhibitions to take some candid portraits, all were taken using my 50mm f1.4 lens and flash bounced off the ceiling.
Thanks must go out to Bec & Dan for stepping in at the last minute and hosting a great party.